


The Only Thing That's Different

by mrs_d



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, F/M, season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 16:28:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4356251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_d/pseuds/mrs_d
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spike always tasted like blood. It’s how he got warm for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Thing That's Different

**Author's Note:**

> Set between "Wrecked" and "Dead Things." Thank you to Clementine, my beta reader. I hope you know how much I appreciate you.

Buffy never asked how Spike knew when she was coming by his crypt, but somehow he always did. He was never surprised when she showed up, even though she made a habit of telling him she wasn’t coming back.

Every time he’d be waiting for her. Already warm.

_Angel’s skin was a shock against hers. He was damp with the rain, the sheets still clammy from their wet clothes. Her kisses heated him, but his fingers inside her were cold at first. Buffy had a flash of relief; months earlier, in the locker room, she’d heard Tiffany Waterston complaining about how her boyfriend tried to put three fingers in her: “It hurt, like a stretchy, burny feeling almost.” Angel's hands wouldn’t burn her. If anything, she thought, she’d burn him. Then his cool tongue touched her thigh and worked its way inward, and she couldn’t think about anything else. While she was still gasping for breath, he told her they could stop if she wanted, but she pulled him closer until he entered her with a moan muffled by her hair. “Buffy, I love you,” he murmured into her ear, as he started to move inside her. “I love you, I love—”_

Spike’s warmth didn’t last. After sex, his body would go back to its normal temperature, which was like concrete on a cloudy day. The hardness of his flesh was all that kept her from thinking he was part of the bed. It wasn’t like he breathed or anything.

She never stayed the whole night. Not since that first time when the house caved in around them. Once he fell asleep, she would always roll out of his arms and get dressed and go home, wash away the grave dirt, rinse the blood taste from her mouth — no actual blood. Usually.

_Riley was warm. Like a furnace between her thighs, sweat dripping onto her breasts as they moved together, his whisper in her ear — “God, Buffy. You feel so good, I love you so much” — like the muggy breeze of an LA summer. When he moved his mouth back to hers, she could taste his daily regimen: brush and floss and rinse. Repeat. He took two showers every day, pulling her into the steam with her, holding her close, laughing, “If you slip, Buffy, I want to catch—”_

Spike always tasted like blood. It’s how he got warm for her. But tonight he didn’t. Tonight he tasted minty. Gum, maybe. She pushed him away, asked him to change, show her the demon within. When he wouldn’t, she hit him. With a snarl, the vampire was there, and she kissed the ridges around his eyes then guided that face down, told it to bite her thigh, suck just a little. He hesitated.

“Please,” she said.

His tongue touched her skin as he nodded. It tingled the second before she felt his teeth. The pressure, the pain, the heat of the trickle down her thigh made her moan and writhe against him. He licked the tiny wound and pulled away for an instant before moving his tongue — hot now, so hot — over her clit in a frenzied rhythm.

“Is that better, Slayer?” he asked, and she could feel the brush of his dull teeth.

“Change back. Bite me again,” she whispered.

His mouth moved across to her other, unmarked thigh. He kissed it tenderly. “I might not be able to stop.”

“I’ll make you. Please,” she said again. “Just a little more.”

There was a tiny growl and then his teeth were there again, his mouth sucking ever so gently, before he pulled back with a gasp and slid up, his naked erection slipping into her with ease, his bloodied mouth back on hers.

“Yes,” she gasped between kisses. “Yes, that’s better.”

He worked his slender hand between them, stroking her clit until she was tightening around him, until the wave of pleasure was running down her thighs like rain, like steam, like blood. She cried out as he drove into her hard, so hard, his strength matching hers, his torso trembling under her hands.

A moment later, he pulled out and eased down on top of her. His body was already cooling, and he was saying something into her ear, but she was drifting off, she couldn’t hear him, she wasn’t listening.

* * *

_Buffy woke up enclosed, in the dark, with the smell of dead leaves and graveyard dirt thick around her. She pushed at the top of the coffin, the cold pale fabric hardly seeming to budge against her hands. She made a fist but hesitated, imagining the wood crack, the shower of dirt and bugs. This is it, she thought, the last breath before the dirt falls on—_

Spike rolled to the side. She sat up and fought for air, wiping the sweat from her face. Spike reached for her, but she swatted his arms away, and he mumbled something about needing new footwear as he rolled onto his stomach.

She dressed quickly and headed for the door, not bothering about being quiet; Spike slept like the dead. The crypt door creaked, slammed behind her as she stepped out into the dim pre-dawn light. The birds were already awake, chirping in the trees, so Buffy moved quickly.

An undead face leered at her suddenly. “You smell like sex and blood, Slayer,” said the distorted mouth. “That time of the month?”

He lunged, but she already had the stake out of her jacket pocket. In one motion, she drove it into his heart and turned away before the dust fell.

Then she was kneeling, throwing up until she was empty, retching into the loose earth of a grave so new there wasn’t a stone yet. She took a shuddering breath, climbed to her feet, and stumbled on.

That face. That evil, monstrous thing had been between her legs. She’d asked for it. Those teeth had brushed and broken her skin. That tongue had snaked out between the fangs and—

She stopped again, bent double against a tombstone, and gagged. Bile dripped from her lips. She spit on another fresh grave, wondering if she could do it, dig down, let the dirt claim her, leave the mess to someone else.

But they’d probably just bring her back.

* * *

The first time she came to his crypt, Spike patted the arm of the recliner he was slouched in. “Watch the telly with me, love. We can snog like teenagers a while.”

She grabbed the lapels of his jacket and hauled that bloody mouth up to hers in a rough kiss, then shoved him against a pillar so hard she saw him wince a little. “I’m not a teenager,” she told him, biting his ear. “And I don’t even know what _snog_ means.”

He laughed. “Never mind, pet.” He turned them, so her back was against the pillar instead, and slid their clothing out of the way. “This’ll do just fine.”

Afterwards, she’d run outside to throw up on dead flowers.

The crypt door creaked, then banged. “You all right?”

She didn’t look up. “What do you care?”

His lighter clicked, and she smelled his first drag before he spoke again. “I care. Buffy, you know I care about—”

She broke his nose.

* * *

Buffy went straight upstairs to the shower. She ran the water a little hotter than she could stand it and stepped under the spray, felt the slight sting between her legs.

_Angel was heavy, hot and sweaty with the fever, crushing her. “The blood of the Slayer is the only cure,” she’d said. “If you don’t take it all....” She struggled when he landed on her, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t._

She rubbed soap into the small wounds, savoured the burn.

_Riley tried to explain what his vampire whore gave him. “It wasn’t real. It was just physical, but the fact that I needed it, that I craved it....” She ran after him. She screamed and yelled, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t._

She dug her thumbnail into one jagged tooth mark, watched the red stream mix with the water and spiral down the drain.

_This is killing me._

She moved her thumb to the other bite, dug the nail in. Twisted.

_Good._


End file.
